Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor – With work feeding or handling means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-27
2002-01-08
Maki, Steven D. (Department: 1733)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Surface bonding means and/or assembly means therefor
With work feeding or handling means
C156S556000, C156S230000, C156S285000, C269S021000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06336492
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mounting head apparatus for adsorbing and moving a sheet member to a position above a required object and placing the sheet on the object and a mounting method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a so-called mounting head apparatus is employed to coat an object with a sheet member after the sheet has been registered to a predetermined position. The mounting head apparatus is employed, for example, when an adhesive sheet composed of an adhesive layer and a separable film is mounted on a portion for establishing the connection between a liquid crystal panel and a TAB. When an anisotropic and conductive adhesive sheet is mounted on a predetermined position of a flexible printed substrate, also a mounting head apparatus of the foregoing type is employed.
As shown in
FIG. 1
, the mounting head apparatus incorporates a head
101
for adsorbing a sheet member
100
, a moving means (not shown) for moving the head
101
and a vacuum pump
102
for generating adsorbing force for the head
101
. The head
101
has a plurality of adsorbing openings (not shown) formed in parallel with one another in one direction. Therefore, suction force is generated in the plural adsorbing openings owning to the operation of the vacuum pump
102
so that adsorption of the sheet member
100
is permitted.
In a state of the mounting head apparatus in which the sheet member
100
has been adsorbed by the head
101
, the moving means moves the head
101
to a position above an object
103
on which the sheet member
100
must be mounted. The mounting head apparatus is structured such that the head
101
holding the sheet member
100
adsorbed thereto is brought into contact with the object
103
. Then, generation of the adsorbing force is interrupted so that the sheet member
100
is mounted on the object
103
.
For example, an anisotropic and conductive adhesive sheet is allowed to adhere to a predetermined position of a flexible printed substrate as follows: the anisotropic and conductive adhesive sheet (hereinafter called an “ACF”) formed into a predetermined shape is allowed to adhere to the flexible printed substrate (hereinafter called a “FPC”) by the foregoing mounting head apparatus (temporal adhesion). Then, a heating head or the like is operated to allow the ACF and the FPC to completely adhere to each other (main adhesion).
The mounting head apparatus structured as described above enables the predetermined sheet member
100
to easily be mounted on a required position of the object
103
. Therefore, the operation for mounting the sheet member
100
has substantially been automated.
At present, reduction of sizes of electronic apparatuses incorporating FPC and so forth has caused the sizes of the FPC and so forth to be reduced. Hence it follows that also the foregoing sheet member, such as the ACF, must considerably accurately be mounted on an object on which the sheet member must be mounted and which has reduced size.
The foregoing mounting head apparatus has the structure that the suction force is generated in the plural adsorbing openings formed in one direction. Therefore, the sheet member
100
must have the size with which all of the plural adsorbing openings can be covered to realize sufficiently large force for adsorbing the sheet member
100
. That is, a portion of the adsorbing openings which does not adsorb the sheet member
100
deteriorates the effect of the negative pressure. Therefore, the force for adsorbing the sheet member
100
becomes insufficient.
To prevent the foregoing problem, a method may be employed with which change to a head
101
corresponding to a small sheet member
100
is performed. Another method may be employed with which a portion of the adsorbing openings is masked to correspond to the small sheet member
100
. The operation for changing the head
101
and that for performing masking are very complicated operations, causing the productivity to excessively deteriorate. Although each of the foregoing methods is able to generate the adsorbing force corresponding to the small sheet member
100
, there arises a problem in that the force for adsorbing a large sheet member
100
is insufficiently small when the large and small sheet members
100
are alternately mounted.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
To prevent the problems experienced with the conventional mounting head apparatus and the mounting method, an object of the present invention is to provide a mounting head apparatus and a mounting method each of which is capable of satisfactorily adsorbing any one of sheet members regardless of the size of the sheet member and accurately mounting the sheet member on a required position on an object.
To achieve the above-mentioned object, according to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mounting head apparatus for adsorbing and moving a sheet member to a position above an object on which the sheet member must be mounted and mounting the adsorbed sheet member on the object, the mounting head apparatus comprising an adsorbing portion having a plurality of adsorbing openings formed at the leading end thereof; a connection chamber to which the adsorbing portion is joined and which is formed into a space for connecting the base portions of the plural adsorbing openings to one another; dividing means disposed in the connection chamber and arranged to divide the internal space of the connection chamber into a plurality of sections; and pressure reducing means connected to the connection chamber and arranged to reduce the pressure in the connection chamber, wherein adsorbing force is generated from a portion of the plural adsorbing openings in a predetermined region when the dividing means divides the inside portion of the connection chamber at a predetermined position and the pressure in at least either of the divided connection chambers is reduced by the pressure reducing means.
The mounting head apparatus according to the present invention and structured as described above incorporates the dividing means which is capable of dividing the connection chamber at a required position. The mounting head apparatus reduces the pressure in at least either of the divided connection chambers to generate adsorbing force. At this time, the dividing means of the mounting head apparatus determines the dividing position in the connection chamber according to the size of the sheet member which must be adsorbed. As a result, the mounting head apparatus according to the present invention is able to generate the adsorbing force from the adsorbing openings formed in a predetermined region according to the size of the sheet member. Thus, the mounting head apparatus is able to adsorb a sheet member having a predetermined size.
To achieve the foregoing object, according to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a mounting method arranged to adsorb and move a sheet member to a position above an object on which the sheet member must be mounted and mount the adsorbed sheet member on the object, the mounting head method comprising the steps of: using a mounting head apparatus incorporating an adsorbing portion having a plurality of adsorbing openings formed at the leading end thereof, a connection chamber to which the adsorbing portion is joined and which is formed into a space for connecting the base portions of the plural adsorbing openings to one another, dividing means disposed in the connection chamber and arranged to divide the internal space of the connection chamber into a plurality of sections, and pressure reducing means connected to the connection chamber and arranged to reduce the pressure in the connection chamber; causing the dividing means to divide the inside portion of the connection chamber at a predetermined position; and causing the pressure reducing means to reduce the pressure in at least either of the divided connection chambers so that adsorbing force is generated from a portion of the plural adsorbing openings in a predetermined region, and the a
Haran John T.
Maioli Jay H.
Maki Steven D.
Sony Chemicals Corporation
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